


Pass Here And Go On

by abogadobarba (daltonfightclub)



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: All the Holiday feels, Barba does not belong in the midwest okay, Christmas, M/M, S21 with some liberties taken, Snowbound Adventure, barisi on a train, did someone order pining?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:40:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22058686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daltonfightclub/pseuds/abogadobarba
Summary: Just as the record turns over to the next track, Carisi comes barreling into the car, the door whipping open and banging against the metal frame. Barba laughs with the whole of his body at the scene unfolding before him: Sonny Carisi, frenzied and apologetic, crashing into his world not once but twice in a lifetime.He wouldn’t want it any other way.OR:It's Barisi On A Train, y'all.
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 37
Kudos: 66
Collections: Barisi Holiday Exchange 2019





	Pass Here And Go On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [minato34n](https://archiveofourown.org/users/minato34n/gifts).



> Happy holidays! I'm humbled to deliver this gift to minato34n who prompted me with dialogue ("both pining and pathetic start with P") and I threw in a little ~tipsy barba (another prompt) to make the yuletide gay!
> 
> I have to say this is NOT AT ALL where I thought the story would go, but wherever these two lawyers lead, you must follow!! I'd like to give a special shout-out to all my fellow exchange participants, our little nano group, and especially to ohlittleowl—this story wouldn't be possible without her constant support and kicks in the behind. So, thanks all!
> 
> minato34n, I hope you enjoy!

> _"There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars."_

_***_

Rafael Barba is an exceptionally patient man. 

At least, there are times when he _can_ be patient, moments when he feels so inclined and can calculate the benefit of being as such, like when charming a particularly circumspect jury, or convincing a reticent judge to admit crucial evidence, or when standing in the morning coffee queue and judiciously _not_ murdering every Tom, Dick, and Harry who waffles over their order consequently taking minutes from his day and years from his life. 

Some call it stubbornness; others, a self-serving calculation of will and withholding; the most deranged defense attorneys with a death wish, intransigence or obstinance. 

Even still, the fact remains: there are occasions which, to the most dear and observant, Rafael Barba is nothing less than a paragon of patience. He wouldn’t be where he is now, wouldn’t have made it through the years of naysaying and doubt from classmates and family members, wouldn’t have a life that’s respectable and enviable—not just for a _hijo del barrio_ but for any good son of New York—if it weren’t one of his more practiced and impervious qualities. 

Boarding a cross-country train amidst the peak chaos of holiday travel and being trapped in a malaise of germy children and their weary parents who, for all their hem-hawing to the contrary, would just as well abandon them on the stoop of a stranger than take responsibility for their wild and reckless offspring, however, is decidedly _not_ one of those occasions. 

No, Rafael Barba’s patience is not an infinite well nor is it particularly suited to the unique trials of travelling some-three thousand miles through barren desert, snow-capped mountains, and desolate plains, and yet he finds himself in such a position all the same: a grown man crammed into a too-small bedroom “suite” with, amongst other things, his nervous mother and a suitcase full of trinkets and questionably smelling snacks hastily curated as belated Christmas gifts for Lucia’s many friends and acquaintances, watching the rusty, sun-soaked sands of Nevada’s Paradise Valley roll by in the distance.

 _Paradise_ , Barba muses over his uncracked book _, but for who?_

It can be surmised then that Barba, so removed from the city and all the conveniences and luxuries thus afforded, certainly did not expect to spend the precious few hours of his holiday vacation on a three-day, non-stop sojourn from California to New York, but when the woman who gave you life and purpose and a roof over your head comes calling for a traveling companion, even the simplest of fools would do well to answer.

And Rafael Barba, though he may be many things—not all flattering—is certainly no fool.

Besides, somewhere in the depths of his being, buried under the more pragmatic notions of efficiency and the discerning standards for which he’s come to be known over the years, there exists a boyish curiosity about what the country looks like from the ground (the way it was built to be seen), a latent wanderlust cultivated by the freewheeling stories of his youth (Steinbeck and Wolfe, Thompson and Twain), a secret romanticism that pervades even the most mundane of his daily tasks (court and class and coffee and dinner) that makes Rafael Barba wonder _what if?_

 _What if_ he never transferred to Manhattan? Or became a prosecutor at all?

 _What if_ he was a different man with a different life with a penchant for lazy weekends and worn-in jeans and not early mornings and three-piece suits?

 _What if_ he disappeared into some inconspicuous town where no one knew of his name or his convictions or his impulsive indiscretions?

 _What if_ he didn’t leave it all behind, leave _him_ behind, and instead stuck it out and fought for what was right, and fair, and _theirs_?

Barba considers all of this and more, privately, late at night when the city is asleep and the last of the day’s responsibilities have disappeared into the night sky. There’s really not much else he’s thought of since he left the District Attorney’s office for what promised to be greener pastures: a tenure track position at a top 50 law school (Fordham and no, the irony is not lost on him), a pro bono caseload of his choosing care of Bayard Ellis and the New York Center for Civil Liberties, and a life less stressful by half but lonelier still—somehow more so than even a cynical, world-weary man from the Bronx could have conjured in the darkest of his daydreams.

It wasn’t a perfect life by any stretch of the imagination, but it was his, and it was (mostly) whole, and it was free from the expectation and the moral ambiguities and the temptation that once threatened to swallow him alive. And that, for now, was enough. 

Or so he tells himself anyway.

***

> _"I was surprised, as always, by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility."_

***

Some two hours and three cups of mediocre coffee later, after he’s managed to get his mother settled in their compartment with her peppermint tea and her Xanax and all the assurances that his equanimity can provide, Barba watches out of the dining car window as the rolling red hills of Nevada transform into the grand mountains of Utah, their white-tipped peaks breaking through the low-hanging clouds, the unassuming towns below huddled against its face, cozy and modest in their shadows.

Despite their sprawl and impassable, timeworn presence, in some ways, Barba knows, the mountains, the nature—all that lay between him and the comfort of his own bed back in the city—is really not so antithetical to the views he once marveled at as a boy standing atop his twenty-story building in the projects, sequestered away from the bustle and danger that loomed below, just him and the open sky and gleaming glass and shiny metal for as far as the eye could see. 

The imposition of the skyscrapers, the impossibility of their engineering, the longing he felt when he looked at the skyline and saw nothing but a life that wasn’t his to take (but for which he had the audacity to steal anyway), this too is what he saw when he looked towards the mountains.

Maybe this trip wasn’t such a waste after all—not that he’d ever tell his mother as much.

But it was. _Nice._

See, Rafael Barba may have been born and raised on the streets, and he may be a man who could subsist entirely on boiled bagels and bodega coffee if circumstances necessitated it, but even he could recognize the beauty bestowed upon the vast and empty plains stretched out before him. There was something in the purity of large swaths of land completely untouched by humans and civilization and all the evils inherent therein; it made him think of youth and innocence and the hope afforded by love and love alone. 

It was comforting as much as it was profoundly heartbreaking.

 _Ah, well_ , he thinks, _so it goes._

To be alone in the company of strangers though, like he is now—sitting in a dated dining car with leftover shedding tinsel lining the countertops and fake poinsettias collecting dust on the tables—that’s a feeling as familiar to Barba as the adrenaline coursing through his veins before a big summation or during a particularly heated tête-a-tête with a frustratingly clever coworker. He’s always been at home in his solace, for better or for worse, so he settles in, tears his eyes away from the window and the darkening cobalt sky, and cracks open his book.

Of course nothing is ever _that_ simple, is it?

Not even five pages in and he hears the slide of a mug across the table, the whine of the booth seat as it buckles under pressure, the rat-a-tat-tat of knuckles on the vinyl tabletop, and look, Barba gets that this whole travelling cross-country thing means giving up some of the luxuries of everyday life like running water and tables for one, but even his elitist, cosmopolitan self knows better than to plop himself down wherever he pleases without so much as the courtesy of asking for permission to share a space or meal.

Then again, they are approaching flyover territory, so god only knows what kind of barns his fellow passengers were raised in or what kind of weapons they might be carrying. 

Best to not engage.

Barba is trying his damndest to focus on the words on the page—though now they seem to be floating up and around the margins as his mind seethes with the interruption—but the tapping is incessant and obnoxious and ruining the peaceful mood he managed to establish for himself despite his table partner's manners (or lack thereof). On any other day, he’d just retreat, leave the offender to their own devices, save the fight for where it matters most, but _damn it all to hell:_ this is still _his_ vacation as much as anyone else’s—however depressing it may look from the outside. 

Besides, he was here first, so decorum (and hundreds of years of colonialism) would state that this land is his to claim.

He earmarks the page with care, creases the corner and tries to ignore the voice in his head that follows the movement ( _“Barba, you mark up your books? I’m shocked. The disrespect, am I right?”_ ). A deep breath before he looks up towards the meddling passenger.

“I don’t mind sharing the booth but…”

A smile. Shocking in its familiarity, disarming in its bashfulness. It’s as bright and beautiful as the vistas just outside the window and twice as devastating as the jagged cliffs they obscure.

“A little on the nose, don’t you think?” Carisi says casually as if picking up a conversation from moments before and not one that’s seen months and years pass between then and now.

“I, I’m,” Barba starts. His words—always close, always clever—fall out of his mouth with a clumsy thud. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on Rafael,” he says and taps the book on the table with the tips of his fingers. “The book? _On the Road?_ I know you like some good thematic consonance and all, but this might be taking it a little too far. Even for you.”

Barba looks down again at the book, at the curling edges of the cover, the fading orange text, the yellowing pages that he knows bear earmarks and tears and hurried scribbles from years past. He doesn’t _really_ want to equate himself to an old beat up book, but staring into the radiance that is Sonny Carisi’s presence, looking at the way his greying hair sits impeccably coiffed upon his crown, the faint dusting of a shadow across his jaw, the life in his eyes and the color in his cheeks, Barba feels about as vernal as a dusty Dickens novel.

First edition.

He wonders then, for the briefest of moments, if this version of Carisi sat before him, perfect and poised and presumptuous as he is, isn’t just an apparition Barba’s summoned to keep himself company, a vision of a man he once longed for, deeply and without apology. It wouldn’t be the first time his mind supplied such a fantasy he so desperately wanted to be real, but it _would_ be the first time outside the confines of his bedroom.

“I looked up at the dark sky,” Carisi says, and if he didn’t know it before, that brash accent—gritty and raw and unsound—was enough to convince Barba this was as real as the floor under his feet, the cool ceramic cup in his hand, the traitorous fluttering of his heart. “And prayed to God for a better break in life and a better chance to do something for the little people I loved.”

Carisi looks out the window as he recites the line, his eyes crinkling against the white winter light reflecting off the frozen, snowy ground. Barba’s breath catches.

“So a fan then?” Barba asks. The feeling in his toes is slowly returning with each minute that passes, the initial shock of seeing Carisi out in the literal middle of nowhere fading into the dusky horizon beyond the mountains. His eyes narrow. “Or do you just make a point of memorizing arcane literary quotes to impress all your potential suitors?”

He may have forgotten many things in the years since he left the squad, memories and moments and unexpected feelings tucked away in the name of self-preservation, but nothing could take away the familiar warmth in the pit of his stomach as he watches the joy from Carisi’s smile reach his eyes. It’s as simple as crisp leaves underfoot on a brisk autumn day, the crunch of fresh fallen snow in the dead of winter, the first chirps of blackbirds in early spring. It’s radiant and intimate and it’s all _his._

At least it is for now, anyway.

“Nah, nothing like that,” Carisi deflects, coy and unassuming, and if that doesn’t just _break_ Barba’s heart. “I read it back when I was a kid, you know, Staten Island and all. I felt trapped a lot.” He runs his hand over the lip of his mug—the coffee, untouched. “I had this whole phase, right? Kerouac, Ginsberg, Bukowski. The whole nine. I was such a goddamn cliche, now that I think about it, but it just all seemed so _romantic_ , y’know?”

 _Yes_ , Barba thinks, _yes, I think I do._

“I dunno. It felt like a way out. Like some big adventure I knew I’d never have.” He looks at Barba then, sure and steadfast like he's holding the last, ill-shaped puzzle piece in his hands and is determined to make it fit. “But hey, maybe I was wrong about that.”

“Is that why you’re here then?” Barba asks. He’s struck, _so_ suddenly and _so_ completely, with the desire to know not just everything about the man sat before him (Lord knows _that’s_ nothing new), but with the fanciful notion that it was fate that brought them here together—to this life, this snowbound reunion, this cramped train car rolling through the foothills of the Rocky Mountains on what should be another average day in December. “You’re seeking out your one great adventure?”

Carisi ducks his head. 

_What’s there to be embarrassed about,_ Barba thinks, _when I would risk it all for you?_

“Something like that.”

And because it’s _imperative_ that Barba knows: “Alone?”

A shake of the head; it looks a little bit like wonder, Barba’s pleased to discover, and not at all like a dismissal. “Definitely alone.”

Barba purses his lips, squirms in his seat, tries to contain the joy, relief, hope, and swallow it down with his forgotten coffee. It may just be the best thing he’s ever tasted.

They sit in companionable silence for some indeterminable amount of time (and what’s time anyway when you're stuck in that boundless space between Christmas and New Years, when you’ve got nothing to do and nowhere to be but in the presence of a once-friend and should-be lover?), a quiet which is exceptionally surreal for two men known for, above all else, their verbose orations.

They're sitting for so long that, once the glances are all stolen and intentions exchanged, the sky is painted an inkly black—the darkest Barba’s ever seen it, darker than he knew it capable of being now that it's free of the city lights, the cars and the billboards and the restless night dwellers. He can just make out a summit in the distance, the purple-pink haze of the last vestiges of sunset illuminating its silhouette on display for passengers trickling in for an early evening meal.

The breath is tight in Barba's lungs, shallow and unsure of what’s to come.

 _Fuck it,_ he thinks. _What do I have left to lose?_

The question is on the tip of his tongue, the words he’s held near and dear for the past two years (or more, if he’s being honest) threaten to slip out with the next exhale, when Carisi’s phone buzzes against the tabletop. Barba looks at it with all the contempt generally reserved for the most heinous of perpetrators.

“Sorry,” Carisi says, looking about as miserable as Barba feels, “I’ve really gotta take this.”

He shuffles out of the booth, his long legs tangled from being forced into such a restricted space. Barba waves him off and looks at his retreating back in resignation.

 _Three thousand miles_ , he thinks, _three thousand miles and I still can’t find my way back to you._

And then, as if summoned by the strength of Barba’s ennui alone, Carisi stops, turns on his heel, and marches back towards the table with newfound determination. 

“So uh,” he fumbles, a hand reaching to the back of his neck. His nervousness is endearing, Barba thinks. It always has been. “You’re here. I’m here. How fucking crazy is that?” He sticks his wayward hands in his pockets. “Why don’t you let me buy you a drink later, for old time’s sake?”

“Yes,” Barba replies without hesitation—not this time. Not ever again. “Yes, that’d be great.”

Carisi smiles then, unguarded and free, and if Barba were the type for cliches, he’d say it lit up the whole goddamn car. But he’s _really_ not.

(It is pretty much everything he's ever hoped for, though.)

The phone buzzes again, aggressive and unrelenting. Carisi grimaces. He shrugs an apology before turning again and swiftly exiting the car. Barba wonders what on earth could be so pressing that it should find Carisi—so far from home and thus more or less incapable of solving any crime—as urgently as the call suggests. 

A question for later, Barba supposes.

 _"Later,"_ he says through an exhale.

***

> _'"It’ll take you eternities to get rid of me,'" he adds sadly. I want him to say I’ll never get rid of him—I want to be chased all eternity till I catch him."_

***

Barba’s on his fourth read-through of the same page, all the words sticking together like drying molasses, when his mother, sat opposite and looking poised as ever with a tea in one hand and a magazine in the other, clears her throat—and pointedly, at that.

He rolls his eyes for the noise it makes in their small compartment, but tucks the bookmark away and squares his shoulders all the same. If she wants his attention, she can have his _full_ attention.

“Yes, mother? Is there something I can do for you?”

“Oh, it’s nothing hijito.” She turns a page, purses her lips, blows on her lukewarm tea.

He waits her out.

Rafael Barba is a patient man.

“It’s just,” she starts. _Here we go._ “You’ve been awfully…malhumorado since this afternoon. Grumpy. More than usual. All through dinner, too. It’s ‘SVU this’ and ‘the DA that.’ I thought you were over it, hijito. But the sighing, Rafael, the sighing! Me estás volviendo _loca_!” She exhales with great exaggeration, her face a comical imitation of a frown. “What’s gotten into you?”

He looks up towards the ceiling—hoping to find what, he doesn’t know. A prayer? Salvation? An escape hatch?

He’d take any of the above.

“I ran into…someone. A former colleague.”

Lucia’s eyebrows shoot up towards her hairline. He inherited a lot of qualities from his mother, chief amongst them her tireless work ethic and lion heart, but the ability to maintain a poker face was not one of them. “Here? On the _train?”_ She says it like it’s a dirty word, like he agreed to this asinine trip for the sole purpose of setting up a clandestine rendezvous with an anonymous lover.

And, well. So what if he would?

“Yes, mami. Here, on the train. In the very same car we sat in earlier for dinner.”

She assesses him, her eyes flitting from one corner of his face to the other and then back again in one seamless motion. He feels five-years-old, having just come in from playing stickball with Alex and Eddie (rather, watching Alex and Eddie play ball and then subsequently break Mrs. Pérez’s window), once again completely incapable of keeping any degree of secret from his mother’s keen detective skills.

“Ah,” she says sagely, “so not just a colleague, then.”

He huffs in frustration. There is no sum of money Barba wouldn’t pay to—for once in his life—have something of his own, free from the prying eyes of his mother or his tías or, as it were in simpler days, the well-intentioned sleuthing of the squad. “ _Just_ a colleague, mami.”

 _“But not for long,”_ she sing-songs into her tea.

Barba readjusts his legs, uncomfortable and unnerved for being found out so easily, and deliberately puts his nose back in his book.

A few blissful, uninterrupted moments pass, the lights of Salt Lake City glitter in the distance, and Barba thinks he gets it—the longing people feel for quiet nights and wide open spaces and endless road. Jack Kerouac and Joan Didion and John Steinbeck, it was the spirit they captured in just a few words over the miles and through the decades: the melancholic regret of leaving one place in search of something better or other or just _more._

Here, he’s untouchable; he can sit with his thoughts, he can remember the small touches and the big wins and all the yearning in between; he can remember the day it all changed, the precise moment it slid into place and his view of the world shifted, however slightly; they were no longer Barba and Carisi but _Barba and Carisi,_ a pair to be reckoned with, allies in each others’ corners, and he wanted nothing more but to unearth all the challenges and nuances of what that might mean for him and for _them,_ together.

And then, of course, he can remember—in no great lack of detail—the pain of letting it all go, the moment he let his emotions and contrition get the best of him, the exact second he switched out the light and walked out that door for the last time, desperately hoping to see a familiar face on the other side, only to be faced with the gut-wrenching disappointment upon finding the hallway just as empty as when he walked in.

Yes, it’s probably lonely out here in the middle of the country with nothing but snow squalls and ski bums and Mormons to keep you company, but Barba knows from experience that nothing’s as lonesome as an island of your own creation. 

“You know,” Lucia says knowingly, her eyes never leaving the page of her magazine, “pining and pathetic both start with a P.”

“Gracias, mami,” Barba says indignantly. “That’s _so_ helpful.” 

“I’m just saying, hijito,” she licks her finger and flips the page, “surely a man as smart and clever as you would know when it’s time to stop _thinking_ and start _acting_ on those feelings, no?” She casts her gaze over to window, “Or did you also lose your duende when you lost that job?”

Barba follows her gaze out the window, shuffles his feet carelessly. After nearly five decades with this woman, he knows when to fight back and when to _calla y escucha_. Now is definitely a time for the latter, especially because she’s not…wrong. Not entirely. He _did_ leave a lot behind, but his passion? Fully accounted for.

His heart? Now, that’s another story entirely.

He checks his watch. Half-past eight. Still too early to meet Carisi for their predetermined not-date (and _boy,_ the thrill Barba felt the moment he saw Carisi’s picture—a snapshot of their life three years past—pop up on his phone was probably pathetic, at best, but satisfying all the same).

Then again, maybe he’s actually two years too late.

Barba makes for the door. _Mejor tarde que nunca_.

***

> _"The details are the life of it, I insist, say everything on your mind, don’t hold back, don’t analyze or anything as you go along, say it out."_

***

Rafael Barba is an exceptionally patient man.

At least, there are times when he _can_ be patient, moments when he feels so inclined and can calculate the benefit of being as such, like when waiting in a mostly deserted bar car the day before New Year’s Eve with what looks to be three of the train’s resident barflies, partially hidden behind a garish gold and white artificial tree, waiting for Sonny Carisi and the rest of his life to begin.

Yes, Barba is a patient man, but even he is not immune to the low-grade anxiety that sets in as the minutes tick by and there’s still no sign of Carisi’s gangly limbs or perfectly appointed suit (and unless Barba’s eyes deceived him, some new oxfords on his feet) walking through the door. After all these years, he thinks he knows Carisi well enough to know that he wouldn’t just leave Barba high and dry without so much as a word to explain his absence.

Unless…

“No,” Barba says into his glass, already emptied twice over. “He wouldn’t.”

He watches as one of the barflies stumbles to his feet, wobbles slightly with the sway of the train, and makes his way to a jukebox in the center of the car. Barba holds his breath (and his annoyance) as he waits for some god awful country song to cut through the quiet car, but sighs with relief when he hears the first lines of “The Christmas Song” in Nat King Cole’s dulcet baritone float through the speakers.

Surely, he can wait this one out. He’s already waited this long— _years_ , an entire _lifetime_ , really—what’s a few more minutes between friends?

Just as the record turns over to the next track (Bing Crosby, _thank god_ ), Carisi comes barreling into the car, the door to connecting vestibule whipping open and banging against the metal frame.

Barba laughs with the whole of his body, guttural and without shame, at the scene unfolding before him: Sonny Carisi, frenzied and apologetic, crashing into his world not once but twice in a lifetime. 

He wouldn’t want it any other way.

“I am _so_ sorry, Raf,” he says in a huff as he sits down. He takes a swig of the whiskey Barba ordered for him with the faint hope that it wasn’t just Carisi’s taste in alcohol that’d changed over the years. Looks like he was right. “I got caught up with work again, which is kinda the way this whole ‘vacation’s’ been goin’, y’know?” He throws his hands up in exasperation, his eyebrows exaggerating his air quotes like bookends.

“Work? Now?” Barba asks, and really, what _was_ Liv thinking? “What’s Liv thinking? No offense Detective, but how much help can you really be out here in the middle of…” he looks around for clues but turns up empty. “Wherever we are?”

“Oh,” Carisi puts his glass down, bites his lip. “Actually, it’s Counselor now.”

Barba tilts his head, squints, tries to reconcile the man sitting before him and the one he left back in the precinct some many months ago. He had his hopes, obviously—Barba’s extracurricular interest in Carisi’s career was never really a secret—and made all the appropriate calls. He put in as much legwork as he could without raising any flags, but there was only so much that could be done without Carisi’s input, and well, his consent.

And it all adds up, now that Barba thinks about it: the new suits, the unhealthy attachment to his phone, the darkening circles under his eyes...All the marks of a freshly appointed, overworked, underappreciated Assistant District Attorney.

For a brief and fleeting moment, all Barba can bring himself to feel is a profound and selfish sadness: for the life that he left behind, the one that continued on without him; for Carisi achieving this major accomplishment and him, estranged and disconnected, never being the wiser; for the looks and comments Carisi probably had to put up with from his peers; for not having a chance to support him totally and without condition, the way that he deserves to be supported.

Barba lets himself feel this sadness—is getting ready to settle into a long, sorrowful night of rehashing cases and missed opportunities—when he sees Carisi’s face, humble and expectant, looking back at Barba like he hung not just the moon but the stars and the sun and every damn planet in the solar system, and really, who could know sadness in the face of such goodness and light?

“Well,” Barba says, tucking away his grief for another year or two, “I guess congratulations are in order then, _Counselor._ ”

“I guess they are,” Carisi says, raising his glass to meet Barba’s across the table.

“Hey,” Barba says in an octave lower than normal—so quiet and hopeful and vulnerable that it stops Carisi mid-sip. He leans in, closer and closer still until there's barely space for the breath between them.

Barba finds Carisi’s hand, his elbow, his shoulder, his cheek. Sure, his affable hands may be the result of already being three-deep in scotch, but what’s more likely is the years of wishing, hoping, praying for this exact opportunity to unravel before him. And here he has it, everything he’s ever wanted, speeding through the mountains back to a life that never before felt quite right and will certainly never again feel quite whole.

At least not without this man at his side, it won't.

So with his hand on Carisi’s neck, his thumb on a cheek, his eyes shining in contentment, Barba says, “I am _so_ proud of you, Sonny.”

Carisi makes a watery noise of disbelief—barely an exhale of laughter and hope and anticipation—that Barba feels across his lips, in the hollow of his chest, in the pit of his stomach. “I’m glad,” he says, his hand moving to cover Barba’s, steady and strong. “I want you to be.”

And when they lean in, _finally_ , after what feels like years of near misses and false starts, when they really lean in and connect—hands and noses and lips and hearts—they’re instantly startled apart by a loud smattering of applause, whoops, hoots, and hollers from the three asshole musketeers taking up residence on the counter barstools.

“You have _got_ to be kidding me.” Barba says, eyes closed, into the curve of Carisi’s mouth. He’s met not by indignation or exasperation but laughter—wild and foolhardy. It'd be infuriating if it wasn't so damn charming.

After the celebration dies down, they stay wrapped up in each other, frozen in their reverie, skeptical that they should be so lucky to be here at all—in this life, on this train, in this car with gaudy decorations and bottom shelf liquor and a gaggle of onlookers who are making it painfully clear that they don’t often see such open displays of...affection. But most importantly, they pause in their gratitude for each other, and their past, and every twist and turn and bend in the tracks that led them to this very occasion, as messy as the journey might have been.

The scratch of the record player severs their little slice of quietude, the jukebox picks up again, and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” fills the car with a warmth and comfort accessible only when lights are low, drinks are flowing, and loved ones are near.

“Ah man,” Carisi says, grinning from ear to ear, “did you know this is my favorite song _of all time?”_

“I did not," Barba replies. He traces his thumb over the apple of Carisi's rosey cheek, across the delicate lines around his eyes. He wonders if he'll ever get tired of learning and touching and _seeing_ this man. "But I probably should have guessed. A Christmas song _would_ be your favorite.”

Carisi rolls his eyes, throws back the rest of his drink, and sets his sights on the center of the car where the tables have been pushed to the side. Barba doesn’t know what he’s up to but he knows nothing good can come from a look like _that._

“Dance with me,” Carisi says.

“What?” Barba gapes, “Now? To this song? With Larry, Curly and Moe over there in the wings?”

“Why not?” Carisi says, as if it’s really just as simple as that.

 _And maybe it is_ , Barba thinks, _maybe it always was._

“Okay,” Barba says, “why the hell not?”

“All right,” with a slap to his knee, Carisi extends his hand for the first—but definitely not the last—time. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

The music plays, the merrymakers drink and sing and cheer for a reunion years in the making, and the train lumbers forward, onward and upwards into the mountains, kissing the peaks as the sun rises over Colorado, following carefully laid tracks into the infinite valleys of Kansas and Nebraska and Iowa, joining the cacophony of sights and sounds in Chicago just as Rafael and Sonny usher in a new year with a new hope for the future and all that it may bring. 

There will be stops, and starts, transfers and layovers—both on their journey now and in the days that lay ahead—but with the other at their side, and with the assurance afforded by their convictions and the patience that kept them apart once and brought them together once more, there's no doubt that they will endure it. 

So with the great expanse of country behind them, the city and the promise of a full life ahead, with nowhere to go but everywhere, they keep rolling on under the stars.

***

> _"What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."_

**Author's Note:**

> Did y'all catch that SUBTEXT or do I have to SHOUT IT at you from the ROOFTOPS?!
> 
> Sorry not sorry but I definitely yanked a line from Glee. Oops. 
> 
> hijo del barrio - son from/or of the barrio (neighborhood)  
> hijito - familiar for 'son' or, ironically, 'sonny'  
> duende - there's not direct translation but it's like a passion, a fire. think: chutzpah, but the good kind  
> malhumorado - grumpy or bad-tempered, in a kinda morose way (so, barba)  
> calla y escucha - shut up and listen  
> me estás volviendo loca! - you're driving me crazy!  
> mejor tarde que nunca. - better late than never
> 
> The title is from a quote from Kerouac's On The Road (featured heavily in this story), which I think a young, god-fearing Carisi would have appreciated and which would have inspired him to take this trip in the first place: "As we crossed the Colorado-Utah border I saw God in the sky in the form of huge gold sunburning clouds above the desert that seemed to point a finger at me and say, ‘Pass here and go on, you’re on the road to heaven.’” 
> 
> All the quotes embedded in the text are also from—surprise!—On The Road!
> 
> "And so it goes" is a rather famous quote from Slaughterhouse-Five by another one of Barba's favorite others, Kurt Vonnegut. It's one of those quotes that sticks with you your whole life, even if you can't quit remember the story or the context.
> 
> PS find me on twitter @ ashcart!!


End file.
